Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-02-05
APPRENTICESHIP TO TRADES.

Governor Hill, in his message to the
New York Legislature, calls attention to
the decline of the trade apprenticeship as
an evil, and Governor Ames, of Massa-
chusetts, has invited the Legislature of
that State to the same study. Trade or
carnations have practically broken down
apprentice systems. The man with sons
may have them taught trade now days
only by consent of some one who is in no
way related to them. In fact, only very
few are permitted to enter the trades, and
as result we are sending abroad for
skilled workmen. The Trade Unions
would be more American, to say nothing
of being more just. if they gave greater
attention to closing the gates of the trades
to alien workmen, and opening them to
natiye-born boys to become skilled by APP
premiership. The New York Sun declares
that
in certain trades-that of cabinet-msking, for
instance-the skilled mechanics are almost
wholly foreigners, Germans chiefly; and even
carpenter work, in which native Americans
were formerly so expert, Is now passing INTO the
hands of men who learned the business in
Europe These foreigners come here thoroughly
tr ined in their trades, after the manner of our
own workmen in the earlier days, and they
have before them a pretty free field. -or the
ranks of the native mechanics have not been
filed up by the graduation of apprentices into
master workmen. The boys have turned their
backs, with something like disdain upon the
manual occupations of their fathers, and gore
10 boat Tho
trying to pick up living by unskilled labor
which does not soil and harden their hands
Very true; but the "boys" have largely
been driven to join the "innumerable
host" simply because the wicket gate of
apprenticeship has been closed to them.
Governor Hill proposes to meet the evil
by making manual labor, within certain
limits. part of the public school system,
certainly in the cities and larger towns of
the State" and urges "the necessity Of a
new and stringent apprenticeship law to
meet the requirements and wishes alike of
manufacturers and organized labor" The
first remedy will not do. There are too
many things" in the public schools now
The poor man, of all others, can afford to
give his children an education, and this
he can do in most cases only up to the
close of the grammar grades. Any man
ual training schools should come after that
period, and be distinct from the common
schools But such schools would certainly
be opposed by labor organizations for the
same reason that leads them to resist any
proposal for liberal apprentice laws. But
for all that, apprentice systems should be
opened, and American-born boys given full
opportunity TO crowd back the inflow of
alien skilled laborers. Mr.. Charles f.
Peck, the Commissioner of Labor Stats
ties in New York, in his report
for 1855, cited more than twenty trades in
which foreign skilled workmen come here
and engage in one season, and return to
Europe to follow in another, and yet We
are told there i; 10 room for those of our
own household The late chief executive
of this State was kept dancing attendance
six months before he could secure for his
son admission TO a trade, but in that time
scores of alien skilled laborers came in and
secured work. The constant cutlery is that
our children scorn manual labor, but it is
fact that so little inducement or oppor-
tunity offers for them to become skilled
laborers, that nothing better can result
than dislike to labor. When it is said
that an apprentice law should be framed
to meet "alike the requirements of manu-
faeturers and organized labor" there is
proposed by Governor Hill quite an i'm
possible task. An apprentice law to suit
both would indeed be curiosity. When
the question is solved, it will be upon the
broad plane of the common right to COM
pete in all lines of industry. The doctrine
certainly applies to railway operation, and
is popular; the professions put no limit
upon their numbers, and leave to the most
skilled the working out of their own des-
tiny: agriculture has no arbitrary law to
prevent entry upon it, nor would it be toll
Grated even by the trade organizations-in
short, g limitation applies to but por-
ton of the vocations in life, and should
apply to none.